Cassette tapes are making a comeback
<p>Tapes are still alive. The humble cassette carries on, 35 years after the compact disc entered the world. They've survived disks, downloads and now, a new addition since that eight year old story, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/91266747/new-zealand-music-industry-rebounds-thanks-to-streaming-boost" target="_blank">streaming</a></strong></span>. It seems nothing can take down the tape, but it's not quite clear why.</p>
<p>Not only are cassette tapes still being made, but demand for them is surging in some countries. Neilson Music reported a 74 per cent increase in cassette sales for the United States in 2016. And in South East Asia, some record stores are thriving off tape sales.</p>
<p>Neilson says cassette sales in the US increased from 74,000 tapes sold in 2015 to 129,000 the following year, according to <em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7662572/us-cassette-album-sales-increase-2016-guardians" target="_blank">Billboard</a></strong></span></em>. While cassettes saw a huge increase in their popularity last year, comparatively very few people still bought the old format. Millions of CDs were sold that same year.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, cassette sales remain essentially negligible, according to Recorded Music NZ. Its chief executive, Damian Vaughan says tape sales account for about $2000 of revenue each year. The local industry is <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/91266747/new-zealand-music-industry-rebounds-thanks-to-streaming-boost" target="_blank">worth just over $86 million in total</a></strong></span>, he says.</p>
<p>For this country at least, Vaughan reckons cassettes are effectively dead.</p>
<p>But a walk through the local music store shows a few gnarly tapes are hanging on. At Real Groovy on Queen St, you can buy an extended version of Soundgarden's debut album <em>Ultramega Ok</em>, that was reissued this year. It costs only $20.</p>
<p>Managing director of the store, Chris Hart says more bans have been starting to release tapes – but they don't have widespread appeal.</p>
<p>The survival of the tape, Hart says, is down to its hipster value and lower cost than vinyl. It is also bolstered thanks to old cars that don't have CD players or AUX chords.</p>
<p>"A cassette tape is a fetish item, something concrete to signify a fan's dedication," he says. Effectively, they're a stand-in for vinyl records.</p>
<p>More bands have started releasing them in recent years because CDs don't carry the same value for hardcore fans and they're cheaper to make than vinyl.</p>
<p>But the tape will never kill vinyl, he says. "The vinyl revival tends to be about the sound quality of the recording."</p>
<p>In contrast, CDs deliver a higher quality of sound than tapes and are less likely to break. But the novelty of the tape is why bands still order them, Hart says.</p>
<p>"I know that some bands have made quite an effort to produce tapes, but have had little success, while others have covered costs. Though anything a good band takes to a gig to sell, has a market, and cassettes are small enough to fit in a pocket – nobody wants to buy an LP at a concert."</p>
<p>At Real Groovy, Hart doesn't plan to increase its selection of cassettes anytime soon. The market for tapes is fairly limited, he says, to second-hand rock and reggae as well as the classic mixtape.</p>
<p>In Summer they often see a surge in tape sales thanks to "young tourists hiring rent-a-dent kind of vehicles", Hart says. And so, Real Groovy tries to stock some summer music mixtapes for road trips.</p>
<p>While many commentators speculated a "cassette resurgence" may be imminent on the back of the US figures, similar to the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/88125449/The-tables-are-turning-as-vinyl-records-continue-to-rise-in-popularity" target="_blank">much hyped vinyl resurgence</a></strong></span>, even Nielsen said that was unlikely.</p>
<p>Vinyl had shown continued growth over years, reaching a 25-year high last year. The vinyl industry was worth 9 per cent of the total New Zealand music industry in 2015, compared to the measly few thousand tapes contributed.</p>
<p><em>Written by Glenn McConnell. Republished with permission of <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz</span></strong></a>.</em></p>
